


Dismantle Myself for You

by temporalDecay



Series: a distrait life of mistakes [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a certain Psiioniic lets his moirail attempt to cheer him up, with abysmal results, and comes to a few important realizations despite, or because of, them.</p><p>No SGRUB AU, post successful coup, featuring Eridan "I Have No Idea What The Fuck I'm Doing" Ampora and a very, very bitter, not quite sane Psiioniic. Also scars, implied body horror and the handling there of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dismantle Myself for You

Eridan loops his arm with yours before you can really let irritation turn to anger. 

“Not worth your time,” he says with just half of his mouth, tugging you to him, even as he pins the other troll with a glare. 

You feel a throb of something shapeless and screaming in the pit of your gut. He holds your hand, fingers twining with yours, and you know what it means, even though you don’t want to acknowledge it. You glare at the puny, self-important asshole prattling on for the entire bar to hear, about his thoughts on having to wait half a perigee for his ship to be ready to take off again. Eridan’s fingers are longer and thinner than yours, and he rubs his thumb on your knuckles in small, constant circles. You focus on that, lest you blast the entire place to smithereens. 

“It’s just fucking helmsmen,” the drunken captain snarls at the counter, bitter, “who the fuck even cares?” 

The atmosphere of in the bar turns sour, but the more Eridan keeps touching you the more you realize it’s not just you glaring at the man. Most of the trolls present belong to the _Leviathan_ core crew, and their reactions to the sudden rant are not particularly welcoming. The docking station you’re in is pretty small, barely even able to handle the bulk of the enormous cruiser, and your ship – your ship, but not _your_ ship – dwarves this man’s with ridiculous ease. The crew of the _Leviathan_ seems to find his comments in very, very poor taste. 

“I think you should leave,” a burly tealblood, who does something or another for Eridan, says acidly, leaning on the bar next to the man. “You’ve had enough.” 

Eridan leans in to mouth the scars along your neck, pulling you closer to him, as the fight erupts in the bar. He’s trying to distract you to keep you from getting involved – because if you get involved the bar will simply cease existing all together – and you almost hate the fact it’s working. Almost. You slide into his lap easily enough, ignoring the way the chair creaks under your combined weight, and let yourself bury your face into his neck. 

“Feeling up your fucking moirail in public, Ampora,” you hiss in a voice no one else but him can hear, because that’s exactly what he’s doing, not quite shooshing you as he sneaks a hand under your shirt and gently runs his claws over the ridges and bumps of scars all over your back. “What will your crew say?” 

“Man, that fucking son of a bitch Ampora is sure lucky to have such a pretty thing in his lap?” 

His voice is laughing and his hands are kind, but his eyes are still watching the fight around you with something hard and homicidal in their gaze. You should probably do some shooshing yourself, because that what moirails do, but he’s angry on your behalf and his anger is less likely to get innocents murdered than yours. And you want someone to be angry, you deserve having people being angry on your behalf. You like the way it feels, in a spiteful way that curls up cozily under your airsacks. He flicks a claw, back and forth, worrying the large scar on your lower back, almost making you regret telling him how that feels. 

For his impertinence and his hands and his words and that ease with which he bristles and steps up to your defense, you bite his shoulder through his shirt, just letting him feel the point of your teeth without really sinking them in. He chokes down a moan, trying to pass it off as a breathy laugh. 

“C’mon,” he says after a moment, nudging you off his lap. “If we leave before they start to really beat him up, I won’t have to actually tell them to stop.” 

“You’re such a little shit,” you rasp, chuckling as you uncurl your limbs back until you’re back in a standing position. 

“I know,” he grins, towering over you when he stands up, even if he’s slouching somewhat. “It’s great.” 

You pretend very hard not to see trolls pausing their fight to salute you two cheekily as you make your way out of the bar. You lean half your weight on your cane and the other half on Eridan’s side, and it’s almost like your feet aren’t touching the ground, except warmer. He keeps an arm around your waist, thumb almost casually hooked on the waistband of your pants, and even if you didn’t find him adoring most of the time, you’d think his clinginess is endearing. He can’t hold you back, not really. He can’t stop you if you really don’t want to be stopped. And he knows, but he still tries to make you feel like you do belong somewhere, like there’s someone who you can always turn to. So you lean into the touch and watch the lights and the colors spread out in the entertainment sector, the trolls swarming about after being cooped up inside their ships. It’s an odd thing, you think, because this is just another ship, in a way, and there really isn’t anything all that different or better here, than there is aboard their own ships. But it’s just the fact that it’s different, that they get to _move_ , that makes them relax and feel better about everything. You don’t quite understand how it works, but you can certainly appreciate the simple pleasure in being able to go from one place to another. It’s not exactly a privilege that you’ll be taking for granted in a very long time. 

You watch with amusement as Eridan’s pace, already slow to keep up with yours, slows even further as you walk past a piercing and tattoo parlor. 

“You don’t really need another piece of metal in your skin, kid.” 

“But it’s not about needing it, is it?” He grins, dropping a kiss to your temple and tugging you along, “it’s just about liking it.” 

“You like the worst things,” you mutter, more to yourself than him, even as you follow along his tugs. 

“I like _you_ ,” he says, dropping all pretenses and sounding earnest enough to actually hurt what little rags still remain of your soul. 

You look up at him and the lovely curve of his lips, as he all but oozes adoration for you without a single care as to who might or might not see. Stupid, stupid child. There’s still anger churning in your gut, the constant screech of a fury too old to be ever put to rest. It pulses in your veins with the same ease your power does, curling along every nerve. The worst part of being alive, you think, is having to deal with how much you just want to let go until you burn yourself out sometimes. Like a star collapsing into a black hole, only worse, because you have a conscience and you hate what they’ve made you into and how easy it would be for you to do something you’d regret. 

You lean most of your weight onto your cane, reaching with your free hand to pull him down by a horn. 

“ _Worst things_ ,” you insist, pressing your lips to his just enough to feel him grin against your mouth. 

He tugs you along as you enter the store. The sanitized air and the white walls make you tense, sparks of red and blue curling around your tight grip on your cane, until you whistle air between your teeth and force yourself to relax. You shove Eridan away irritably, when he tries to soothe you. This isn’t a lab and no one’s about to stick anything in you and if you could stop remembering what it feels like, to have skin cut open until muscle and bone are bare to the air, screaming until your throat bled, it would be fucking _amazing_. 

Then the moment passes and Eridan is looking over a display case, hands stuck in his pockets and back arched in that perpetual slouch that always makes you feel a burning need to smack him until he learns to stand straight. Time slides back into place, one second after the other, and your mind multitasks with the ease of centuries, one half shriveling up and sobbing miserably because everything hurts, and the other half taking in your surroundings and the way Eridan reacts to them. He talks with the troll behind the counter, asking something or another about the quality of the metal he insists on putting on his skin. 

“Not gonna get anything yourself?” The source of the question is a blueblood with an easy smile. You arch an eyebrow at her, not bothering with words. “Yeah, you don’t look the piercing type. Ink, though, that could be your thing.” 

You hear Eridan’s voice in the background, teasing and bantering with someone else, talking about experience and nonsense you don’t really care much about. The half of your mind that’s collapsing under the strain of handling sanitized white walls is curled up and sobbing miserably somewhere under your skin. 

“The scars—“ you begin, resisting the urge to wince as your throat strains to make a sound the woman will actually hear. 

You don’t know why you bother, except you promised Eridan you’d try to not isolate yourself entirely and right now you need something, anything to keep the balance of your mind tilted firmly towards sanity. 

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.” She grins at you, like she knows jackshit about your scars. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they kinda look like vines, you know?” You would laugh, if you could, but the sane half of your mind is being threatened to be swallowed up by the black hole of hysteria bubbling under the surface. “Ever thought about inking them? They’d look _gorgeous_.” 

“No,” you say, sharp and bitter, and you wobble out of the store as fast as you can, because everything is red and blue and you feel yourself toeing the edge of the precipice. 

And then Eridan wraps his arms around you, leaning on your back but instead of making you carry his weight, he takes on yours, pulling you close against his chest. You shake and hiss and _hate_ , and all he does is hold on and bury his nose into the nape of your neck. Stupid, _stupid_ child. He holds you until you stop shaking, and if you’re hurting him with the red and blue static crawling all over your skin, he doesn’t say a thing. 

“C’mon,” he says after a moment, when you’re more yourself than the sum of all your bitterness, “let’s go home.” 

“I thought you were going to get another hole for your collection,” you hiss, purposely crass and spiteful, because only he can hear. 

“It can wait,” he replies, patient and calm, and you want to hate him, you really do, but he’s nudging you along and putting up with your shit, because he’s your moirail and he loves you. 

You wonder why there are still fools out there who would want to love you, if anyone who’s ever tried ended up dead or worse. But he loops an arm around your waist and his fingers hook on your waistband again, so you take a moment to contemplate how fucking unfair everything is before you lean in against him and let him guide you back to your shared block. 

“Psii,” Eridan whispers as you sit on the shuttle heading back to the ship, huddling in a corner and ignoring everyone else. “Talk to me, love.” 

You don’t want to talk. You want to sit there and stew. You want to lash out. You want to scream. You want to cry. 

Instead, you rest your head on his shoulder and tell him a story about the first time you and Kankri saw the ocean. You focus on the words, rather than the memories or the emotions tied to them and let him wrap an arm around your back and rub small circles on your shoulder. It’s moments like these, when he’s focusing solely on you and you can say anything and have it go unnoticed by the rest of the world, when you almost understand why Meenah did what she did, to you. It doesn’t make it better, though. It’s just how it is. It always is just how it is. But it does help, and by the time you’re walking down the corridors of the _Leviathan_ , you don’t feel quite willing to blow the entire fucking station up. 

“I’m sorry,” you rasp out loud, feeling remarkably stupid as you do, once you’re back to the safety of your respiteblock. 

“Eh, it was a shitty outing, what with the whole bar thing going down,” Eridan says, locking the door behind him and shrugging off his jacket. “’s not your fault or anything.” 

You wonder, sometimes, if he really does understand what you could do, if you lost your temper. How easily you could obliterate him, his goddamn ship and pretty much anything in a very large radius, if you chose to. You wonder, because he shrugs off the implications with entirely too much ease for your tastes. Because he never begrudges you your anger, even if he is the first one to try and soothe it. He tells you not to act on it, but he’s never once told you you’re not allowed to feel it. You let out a shuddering breath, swaying in place, and remind yourself that you’re that, _yourself_. You choose to be yourself, because you have a choice. Choices. 

“Fuck,” Eridan chuckles, reaching to tilt your face up and press his lips to yours again, “you’re thinking so goddamn loud my ears are ringing.” 

You bite him for that, but it doesn’t really deter him much because he _likes_ pain. So you just kiss back and only groan softly in protest when he helps you down onto your ever present pile. You collect pillows and he doesn’t say anything about it, even though you’re pretty sure your persistent need to touch different textures borders on the manic. Your senses are twisted on themselves, after your tenure as helmsman of the _Battleship Condescension_ , and even if it’s been sweeps now, you still feel the loss of your ship as keenly as if you had lost a limb. You miss the input of a million circuits and the world is both duller and brighter because of it. Your senses are your own, your body is just your own. You’re still getting used to being small and stupidly frail, but at the same time you don’t want to reach a point where the constant rustle of clothes on your skin doesn’t feel pleasant and comforting. 

Eridan’s hands are cold and you feel yourself melting into a boneless puddle of content as he starts working you out of your clothes. You should probably return the favor, but you’re upset and sullen and you like it, when he takes care of you. He needs you to pacify him as much as you need him, and it’s okay, you think, to let yourself be looked after from time to time. You deserve it. Because you’re a person and that’s what any person deserves. It’s okay. 

It’s _okay_. 

“Shoosh,” Eridan whispers against your lips and you’re digging your claws into his shoulders and he doesn’t care, because he’s such stupid, stupid _child_ and he likes _pain_. “Psii, please. Talk to me.” 

He pulls you in against him and you don’t even remember when he got rid of his clothes, but it feels so _good_ , his skin against yours. You let go of him just long enough to wrap your arms around his back and tuck your head under his chin as he runs his hands down your back. Every single scar lights up on fire when he touches them. And you have a lot of them. And he’s moving slowly and purposely and you think he’ll have touched them all by the time he’s done. The sensations flooding your mind work to your favor, though. At least you think so. The myriad of textures from the cushion pile, so many variations of soft brushing your knees and your thighs and your back and your side and the bits of skin that aren’t rubbing against Eridan’s, are like a balm for the half of your mind that has nearly collapsed into nothing by now. And then the small, teasing jolts of pleasure as he fingers the ridges and bumps all over your skin, tracing the lattice pattern spread out your back all the way down to the curve of your spine. It quiets down the screeching no one else can hear, the howls of pain and hatred and bitterness that permanently consume part of your mind. If you weren’t so good at multitasking, you think, you would be stark raving mad. As it is, you can be sane and insane at the same time and it works perfectly for everyone involved, except when you reach moments like these and you’re angry and sad and you need a stupid, stupid seadweller child to wrap himself around you and touch you and promise you it’ll be alright. 

“The scars,” you say eventually, when you’ve gather enough of yourself to make sense again. Eridan is mouthing your small left horn and if it didn’t feel so good you’d murder him for it. As it is, he stops what he’s doing to make an encouraging little sound. “She was talking about my scars.” 

“Do I need to go back there and shoot a bitch? Because I will so go back there and shoot a bitch.” 

His tone is teasing, but he’s gone very, very still against you and that’s how you know he means every word. A quiet laugh crawls its way out of your throat, and you think how fucking ridiculous you both are. He needs you to keep him in line, to make him sleep and eat and keep him from wasting away in a stupid effort to be everywhere at once. You need him to remind you you’re yourself now, just yourself, just a troll, despite it all. You shift your limbs, just for the pleasure of feeling his skin slide against yours again. 

You think of the blueblood’s smile, the glint in her eyes, the thrill at things she didn’t, couldn’t possibly know. 

“No,” you say, soft and sated. “No, it’s okay.” 

He brushes his lips against your forehead and you can almost believe it really is okay. 

  


* * *

  


The needles hurt, but it’s a different kind of pain, than the straightforward slice of a scalpel. You still bleed when the skin is pierced, and it hurts like a bitch even as you try to concentrate on the hum of the machine. The walls are white and continuously threatening to cave in on you and force their way through the dam holding back the screaming in the back of your mind. 

But it’s your choice. 

And Eridan holds your hand, as the ink sets in and bit by bit the scars turn into swirls and vines. It’s too much of an ambitious project to get it done, all at once, but you have time. 

You have time. 

And choices. 

And a moirail who holds your hand through it all. 

It’s going to be okay. 

  


* * *

  


_Even though the wounder promptly forgets,_  
 _The ones who are wounded never can,_  
 _And it sticks in their heads, and builds up with dark, stagnant water..._

_If you want it, then certainly I'll dismantle myself for you;_  
 _Arms, legs, hair, tongue, chest, ears, nose, fingers,_  
 _Not even leaving behind my heart..._

~Hatsune Miku, “Waltz of Anomalies.” 

**Author's Note:**

> How do you write pale porn without writing sex? Well. I tried.
> 
>  
> 
> [RP/Askblog for this fic-verse.](http://requisitionforms.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Wired Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/756884) by [temporalDecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay)




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